Oregon Thoughts

Posted at 12:30 pm on Tuesday, August 5, 2008, in Travels, and tagged oregon.

I spent a few days along the Southern Oregon coast this past weekend. It was unimaginably picturesque. Some thoughts…

- The southern Oregon area really is most appropriately described as the State of Jefferson, along with the northernmost parts of California (north of Eureka). There really is more of a southern mindset, rather than, say, a liberal west coast one. The abundance of confederate flags is more than noticeable.

- There is a Dairy Queen in every town, at least on the Oregon side. And I’m not joking. Without fail, by the time we reached the other end of the small towns along the coast, before the eventual “freeway begins” sign, there would be a Dairy Queen. Unfortunately, we didn’t stop at one, although I wanted to.

- Photographs are so difficult during trips like these. Not only because (a) it is hard to capture the beauty of landscape, in and out of sun, beneath and without clouds, but because (b) the entire trip is a photograph that cannot be captured (in a sense, at least). The small fishing towns that you pass on Highway 101; the abandoned buses in the fields emblazoned with graffiti depicting Moses; the random handmade Obama signs on storefront windows. It is nearly impossible to stop at all these places, and document that you did see them (although our ride home on Sunday lasted well over twelve hours). But maybe it is not that important to prove that you saw ‘x’ and did ‘y.’ Maybe just experiencing them and remembering them and talking about them is good enough. But then what would strangers think?

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